Custom 404 page and status: Crawl Audit check 133

Short answer: when someone lands on a page that doesn't exist, two things matter. The server should answer with a 404 status, so search engines know the page is gone. The visitor should see a helpful page that gets them back on track. Check 133 fails if a missing page answers "200 OK", which Google calls a soft 404.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Full report: Crawl Audit requests a made-up address on your site.
  • Pass: it returns 404 or 410.
  • Fail: it returns 200 (a soft 404).
  • Warning: any other status, such as a redirect to the homepage.
• Free check: this isn't tested, and it passes with a note that it's verified in the full report.

It tests the status code, not how the 404 page looks.

What Google says

• "It's a bad user experience to return a 200 (success) status code, but then display or suggest an error message or some kind of error on the page." Such pages "are excluded from Search."
• "A good custom 404 page helps people find the information they're looking for, and also provides other helpful content that encourages people to explore your site further."
• "Custom 404 pages are created solely for users. Since these pages are useless from a search engine's perspective, make sure the server returns a 404 HTTP status code to prevent having the pages indexed."

A helpful 404 page

• Says plainly that the page wasn't found, in your site's normal design.
• Has the main menu, a search box if you have one, and links to your most useful pages.
• Doesn't redirect every missing page to the homepage. That confuses people and search engines.

For pages that moved, add a permanent redirect to the new address instead (check 50).

Sources

• Google Search Central, Troubleshoot crawling errors (updated 18 December 2025), checked 6 October 2026.